Muhammad billboards go up in Seattle

Updated 10:29 am, Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO, SEATTLEPI.COM

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A billboard paid for by the Islamic Circle of North America is shown on Lake City Way in Seattle. The campaign from the organization is hoping to dispel myths about muslim Americans and to raise awareness about the Prophet Muhammad. Photographed on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. less

A billboard paid for by the Islamic Circle of North America is shown on Lake City Way in Seattle. The campaign from the organization is hoping to dispel myths about muslim Americans and to raise awareness about ... more

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO, SEATTLEPI.COM

Muhammad billboards go up in Seattle

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A Muslim-American group has been putting up billboards in Seattle as part of a national campaign to educate Americans about the Prophet Muhammad, the most well-known prophet of the Islamic religion.

The Islamic Circle of North America has paid for four billboards around the Seattle area, with such messages as "Muhammad - peace be upon him - believed in peace, social justice, women's rights."

Billboards also include a phone number and a website for passers-by who want more information.

"This is an attempt from our part as American Muslims that, here we are as your colleagues, your neighbors, ask us about our faith," said Naeem Baig, president of the Islamic Circle group.

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Baig said his group had received more than 1,000 phone calls since the campaign began early this year.

Members of the 47-year-old organization also staff information booths at fairs and other public events in cities across the U.S., all with the hope of educating Americans about Islam, Baig said.

The group chooses a topic to campaign on each year, and this year's was picked after the January attack at the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, when 11 people were killed, apparently over the newspaper's lampooning of the Prophet Muhammad.

Dialogue afterward surrounding the prophet and the Islamic faith was rampant with misinformation and rumor, Baig said.

"We felt the conversation was not a balanced conversation," he said. "What (the two attackers) did was not what we know from the life of the prophet himself. His response was always a response of kindness and generosity and we felt that was missing from the conversation."

Billboards in Seattle can be seen on Lake City Way Northeast, just south of Fischer Place; Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, just south of Graham Street; Aurora Avenue, just north of 107th Street; and Pacific Highway South, just south of Boeing Access Road.

Billboards posted in June in Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Sacramento and Chicago generated 8 million weekly impressions, according to the Islamic Circle of North America's press release. Billboards are also up in San Francisco, Oakland, Phoenix, Denver, Jacksonville, Harrisburg, Albuquerque and more, according to the release.